Because of the severe shortage of home health care workers, many young people with disabilities are somewhere they don‘t want and don‘t need to be: in nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Yet if they were able to find and hire people to take care of them at home, they could live much more independently and also cost the taxpayers a lot less.

I have been a home health care worker and I know the physical and emotional strain it puts on a person. And since the pay is not that much different from working at a fast food place, I might well have chosen the latter before too long.

In the Olmstead decision (see below), the Supreme Court ruled that it is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act to continue to “warehouse” people with disabilities in institutions, if their health conditions do not warrant it. But with the shortage of people willing to take on this kind of work for the current available wages, this landmark court decision could be rendered relatively meaningless.

It is time for an adjustment in our economy, and for some of our nation’s wealth to “trickle down” to the people that want to be liberated from institutions, and the people who can help them make that a reality.